Faculty Council Meeting Minutes - December 13, 2007

Present: Julio de Paula, Dean of the College; Jane Hunter, Associate Dean; Cliff Bekar, Associate Professor of Economics; Mervyn Brockett, Assistant to the President; Ken Clifton, Associate Professor of Biology; Dinah Dodds, Professor of German; Deborah Heath, Associate Professor of Anthropology; and Terri Banasek, Executive Assistant and recorder.

Announcements

• Associate Dean Hunter asked that students be reminded to enroll for their spring semester classes. There is a problem with students signing up for a section of a course and also waitlisting for another section of the same course. It makes it difficult to determine the exact number of students desiring a course, creating staffing problems.
• Dean de Paula announced that the College had received a Mellon Foundation grant for funding teaching post-docs in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. A process needs to be developed to vet proposals from departments, and Dean de Paula proposes that Faculty Council be the body to make those decisions. This is a three-year pilot program, and the College may be able to go back to the Foundation again if the program goes well. This is a good way to enhance diversity.

Agenda Items

1. The minutes of December 6, 2007, were approved.


2. Faculty Council continued its discussion of a policy on course release.


3. The meeting was adjourned at 3:35 p.m.

Next meeting: Day and time to be announced.